HashKey Exchange and digital asset insurer OneInfinity are expanding their relationship into stablecoin payments, with plans to test Hong Kong dollar-backed HKDAP across commercial insurance and cross-border settlement.
The Aug. 17 partnership builds on an existing arrangement between HashKey and OneInfinity, the commercial insurance arm of OneDegree. The companies now plan to explore HKDAP for insurance premium payments in Hong Kong and selected cross-border transactions involving AIFT Group, OneDegree’s parent company.
One proposed route would connect Hong Kong with the Middle East. HashKey MENA could support conversions between HKDAP, the U.S. dollar and the UAE dirham, potentially allowing commercial insurance payments originating in Hong Kong to be settled with counterparties in the region through a stablecoin-based payment flow.
The companies have not disclosed transaction volumes, a launch date for the cross-border service or which counterparties would participate. The insurance premium and international settlement applications therefore remain under exploration rather than fully launched products.
The partnership comes only days after HashKey became a key authorised distributor of HKDAP through a separate agreement with Anchorpoint Financial, the stablecoin’s issuer.
Anchorpoint was formed by Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), HKT and Animoca Brands. It received one of Hong Kong’s first two stablecoin issuer licences from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority on April 10, alongside HSBC. Anchorpoint plans to develop HKDAP, short for “HKD At Par,” as a regulated digital representation of the Hong Kong dollar for payments, settlement and other commercial uses.
HashKey joined Anchorpoint’s HKDAP Beta Access programme on Aug. 12. Eligible institutions and professional investors can access the stablecoin through HashKey, and the exchange said it had already completed its first HKDAP minting and redemption transaction for eligible clients.
HashKey’s Earn Channel also began offering HKDAP subscriptions and redemptions that day. Professional investors can convert Hong Kong dollars into HKDAP at a 1:1 ratio, with a minimum subscription or redemption of HK$1,000. Orders can be submitted daily but are processed on Hong Kong business days and settlement is not instantaneous.
That gives the OneInfinity partnership an existing conversion layer to work with rather than relying on a stablecoin that has yet to reach distribution.
HashKey and OneDegree also have a longer history together.
The companies first announced a digital wallet insurance partnership in September 2023, followed by insurance coverage for assets stored in HashKey’s hot and cold wallets later that year. In August 2025, HashKey said an expanded OneInfinity-led custody insurance programme covered at least 50% of the digital assets held on its platform under an 18-month policy.
The latest agreement takes that relationship outside custody protection and into the movement of money itself.
“We are delighted to join forces with OneDegree to explore potential applications for HKDAP in commercial insurance payments, cross-border settlements, and other scenarios,” HashKey Exchange BG CEO Haiyang Ru said in the announcement.
The project is also one of the first commercial tests of Hong Kong’s new regulated stablecoin market.
The Stablecoins Ordinance came into effect on Aug. 1, 2025 — not in 2026 — introducing licensing requirements for issuers of fiat-referenced stablecoins in Hong Kong and for overseas issuers of Hong Kong dollar-linked stablecoins marketed locally. The HKMA granted the first licences in April this year.
Licensed issuers are subject to requirements covering reserve assets, risk controls and redemption. HKMA rules generally require valid redemption requests to be honoured at par and processed within one business day after receipt unless otherwise approved.
HKDAP therefore enters the market with a regulatory framework designed to make a Hong Kong dollar stablecoin usable beyond crypto trading — precisely the proposition HashKey and OneInfinity are now putting to a commercial test.
Insurance Could Be a Better Stablecoin Test Than Crypto Trading
The most interesting part of this partnership is not that another exchange has added access to a stablecoin.
It is where the companies want the stablecoin to go next.
Stablecoins already work well inside crypto markets. Traders use them to move between exchanges, hold dollar-like balances and settle digital asset transactions. Proving that HKDAP can perform similar functions would add little that the industry has not already seen.
Insurance premiums are different.
They involve real companies paying for real services, often across different jurisdictions and currencies. If HKDAP can become part of that process, its usefulness would no longer depend mainly on whether crypto traders want another token.
The Hong Kong-to-UAE corridor is particularly revealing.
A business transaction between the two markets can involve HKD, USD and AED. A digital settlement layer capable of linking those currencies could potentially reduce some of the handoffs involved in moving money between institutions and jurisdictions.
But that benefit still has to be proved.
The announcement gives no figures for settlement speed, foreign-exchange costs or savings compared with existing bank payment channels. It also does not say whether counterparties would actually receive HKDAP or whether the stablecoin would simply operate in the middle before being converted back into fiat.
Those details will decide whether this becomes useful payment infrastructure or simply a technical experiment.
There is another reason the insurance use case deserves attention: it creates a fairly natural closed loop.
OneInfinity already provides insurance to digital asset businesses. HashKey already has regulated exchange and conversion infrastructure. Anchorpoint provides the regulated HKD token. HashKey MENA adds access to the Middle East. Rather than persuading unrelated companies to adopt a new payment method from scratch, the partners can test it inside business relationships that already exist.
That could make commercial insurance a practical proving ground for HKDAP.
The harder question is what happens after that.
Dollar stablecoins enjoy enormous global liquidity and network effects. An HKD stablecoin is unlikely to compete with them simply by existing. It needs use cases where holding or settling in Hong Kong dollars actually solves a problem.
Local corporate payments, tokenised assets, trade flows and financial transactions connected to Hong Kong are more convincing candidates than general crypto trading.
That is why the HashKey-OneInfinity deal matters despite its limited scale today. Hong Kong has spent years building rules for regulated digital assets. The next challenge is no longer writing the framework; it is finding transactions that businesses genuinely prefer to conduct using the new infrastructure.
If HKDAP begins appearing in recurring insurance payments and actual cross-border settlements, Hong Kong will have evidence that its stablecoin regime is producing something beyond another tradable crypto asset.
If usage remains confined to pilot programmes and exchange conversions, the harder question — whether regulated HKD stablecoins have enough commercial demand to become meaningful payment infrastructure — will remain unanswered.